Poised on a pedestal on the southern end of the Rambla de Catalunya, at the intersection with Gran Via, is a sculpture of a bull. Few tourists give it a second glance. No guidebook seems to have taken the trouble to record its existence. Which is a pity. Because this is no ordinary bull. A very small bull, it strikes neither a menacing nor a proud pose, as Spanish bulls tend to do. No savage toro, this is a brainy, humanised beast that sits on its hind legs, leaning forward, chin resting on its front hoof in whimsical imitation of Rodin's Thinker.
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The likeable minotaur, the work of Josep Granyer, strikes a cheery note for the beginning of our stroll while conveying the message that we are not in the holiday-brochure Spain of matadors and castanets; we are in Barcelona, where killing animals is a matter of nutrition not of sport, where flamenco is as exotic as it is in Paris, where the buildings-the modernista buildings-and the urban landscape which contains them are so unique that in 1999 they earned the city an award which for 150 years had only been given to human beings, the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. From Granyer's sculpture, titled Meditation, one should stroll north along the wide pedestrian promenade that runs down the middle of the Rambla de Catalunya, towards the mountain. Is one of the most gracious streets in Barcelona, a restful refuge in the heart of the city centre. And a delight to the senses, in the unaggressive, insinuating sort of way that characterises all of Barcelona's charms.
Don't lie back and wait to be ravished by the splendour of the monuments, by the mighty sweep of a Champs Elysées. In Modernista Barcelona, the local version of Art Nouveau developed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the tourist has to work. He must fix on the craftsmanship of the ironwork on a balcony, on the Arabic fineness of a pillar, on the exquisite carvings of a door, the impressive, frighteningly vulnerable curvature of a bay window. The buildings, uniform in height and in style, that line the Rambla are beautiful. But they are less beautiful if one misses the detail, the wonderfully gratuitous detail, with which the architect and his mightily skilled craftsmen have invested their labour of love.
The exercise of looking, rather than merely seeing, lets one into one of the secrets of this part of the city: the architecture is uniform but no two buildings are the same. Each has its own character, its own peculiar symmetry, its own different - but always subtle shade of green, grey, yellow or brown. But the Rambla de Catalunya does not feel like a museum, or a forbidding bastion of privilege, as might be the case on an equivalent street in Paris or London. It's a place where ordinary people-well-off maybe, but nothing spectacular-live, shop, park their cars. The buildings might be works of art but on the ground floor you're as likely to find a jewellery store, as a shoe shop, a pharmacy or an ice cream parlour. Often what you will find is that a particularly cutting edge fashion store will have chosen as its home a building that was the height of fashion a hundred years ago. Which brings us to another thing that defines the city's character: Old in Barcelona is cool. As indeed are old people who, unlike other parts of the world, are not tucked away where they cannot be seen but stroll the streets, while away an afternoon sitting down under the shade of a tree on one of the benches that line the Rambla's ample walkway.
If the Barceloneses are a self-satisfied lot, smug about their city, they do not like to show it. Good manners are important to them and ostentatiousness is the height of vulgarity. So instead of stooping to the indignity of telling people how fabulously fortunate they believe themselves to be, they let the church on the mountain top over the city, visible straight ahead and up as one walks north along the Rambla, do the showing off for them. How? By giving the place where the church perches, towering over the city, the most colossaly pretentious of names. Tibidabo. Tibi dabo means "I will give to you" in Latin and, as any New Testament scholar knows, is lifted from the words Satan uttered to Christ when he took him to a high mountain and sought to tempt him by offering to give him all "the kingdoms of the world", in their power and glory, that lay beneath. The message is loud and clear: Barcelona is as good as it gets.
Some of the buildings on the Paseo de Gràcia would seem to confirm the boast. Having reached the end of the Rambla de Catalunya, we loop around Diagonal and head seaward along the city's most elegant boulevard, home of Antoni Gaudí's two most celebrated finished constructions the Casa Milà and the Casa Batlló, a feast to the eyes. The Casa Lleó Morera and the Casa Amatller, side by side with the Casa Batlló on the same magnificent 100 metre stretch of the Paseo de Gràcia, are also worth rather more than a passing glance as indeed are the patterned hexagonal tiles, designed by Gaudí, which serve as the Paseo's paving stones.
Admiring not just the buildings but the ground beneath your feet as you stroll down the Paseo towards the Gran Vía, the thought might occur that Modernista architecture, a blend of solid geometrical principles with artistic flourishes that do no more nor less than celebrate life, offers a window into a characteristically Catalan habit of mind. Sound, practical people conscious of the importance of efficiency and hard work Catalans are imbued also with a keen understanding that life is short and to be enjoyed. Which very likely defines the philosophy of the anthropomorphic creature who inhabits the pleasant spot where our stroll begins and ends, our endlessly meditative bull.
* Este artículo apareció en la edición impresa del Viernes, 15 de marzo de 2002